


Under the Table and Dreaming

by sidneyprescott



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M, Pining, Road Trips, takes place in the early 90s, this is based off of a quote from to all the boys i've loved before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 13:24:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15819771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidneyprescott/pseuds/sidneyprescott
Summary: Stan studied Richie’s chicken scratch and thought: Oh. Right. I’m in love with him.





	Under the Table and Dreaming

The first postcard the Losers received was dated only a day into Eddie and Richie’s Great Adventure, and it was of the Portsmouth Harbor, with a Polaroid attached of the two that simply read: _wish you were here!_

Mike presented it proudly; yeah, it was addressed to him, but this one, like all the others, was for _them._  

Stan held the card, hoping it didn’t show on his face what he thought as his finger traced Richie’s image: _my legs haven’t stopped shaking since I met you._

 

* * *

 

 

It went to shit somewhere in Ohio. Maybe Columbus, ‘cause that's what Richie's been cursing under his breath─ _Columbus fuckin’ Ohio, hell on earth!_

They didn’t even hit the halfway mark. Ohio’s only roughly a fourth of the way from Derry, Maine, to Portland, Oregon; Stan measures it on the United States map in his atlas, with his fingers, as Richie spits blasphemy from his bed. 

Richie says he doesn’t know what crawled up Eddie’s ass and died but he guesses it was Columbus fuckin’ Ohio. A storm rolled in minutes after they crossed the Pennsylvania border into Steubenville. It was foreshadowing.

 

* * *

 

Bill had gotten the second postcard from Boston, Massachusetts, of Fenway Park, signed: _hey, batter, batter, batter, SWING!_  

He passed it around the group down at the quarry. Mike laughed.

Stan studied Richie’s chicken scratch and thought: _Oh. Right. I'm in love with him._

 

* * *

Whatever had crawled up Eddie’s ass was trapped in five and a half feet of asthmatic rage. It scratched under his skin and squeezed his lungs together. 

 _Everything was too much,_  Eddie had told him through a raw throat and wet eyes. Richie was too much. 

The L05VER license plate disappeared in the distance and Richie had sat on the side of the highway with his thumb in the air for five minutes.

 

* * *

 

 

Attached to the third postcard _(Greetings from the Catskills!)_   was a Polaroid of Richie with a waterfall behind him and a poem scribbled across it: _Roscoe used to be a beaver-trapping town. Still is, am I right, boys?_

“It doesn’t even rhyme,” Ben remarked. “God, I’m so proud of him.”

Stan's heart beat in iambic pentameter.

 

* * *

 

Richie found his way back to Derry only a week after the third postcard had been delivered. He’d crawled through Stan’s window at three in the morning, halfway drunk, carrying his duffel on his back and smelling like shitty water. Stan let him crash anyway, still delirious, and held no surprise waking up to see Richie halfway across the room, under the table and dreaming. 

They get a call later from Beverly. Eddie had called her in hysterics ten minutes after leaving Richie on the highway when he doubled back and Richie was gone. _Why didn’t any of you pick up? Oh, Richie's okay? He’s at Stan’s?_  

Eddie’s still going to Portland.

 

* * *

 

 

Stan receives the final postcard that afternoon. It's dated only days earlier, signed _from Eddie Spaghetti and Trashmouth, with love,_ in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

Now that Richie's back and his getaway with Eddie was over, Stan finds it in poor taste to show the others, and Richie, that he’s finally gotten a postcard─ too late. It’d just remind Richie that a few days ago he was in love in Pittsburgh, and now he's not.

Stan’s unsent reply reads something along the lines of: _Richie Tozier, I loved you first. By all rights, you were mine. And if it had been me, I’d have kicked your ass to the back seat with duct tape over your mouth, or, you know what, I would have kissed you instead. That’d shut you up. I would never have left you. Not in a million years, not for anything._

**Author's Note:**

> [find me on tumblr](sidneyprescvtt.tumblr.com)


End file.
